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K6c 

POLITICAL CRISIS 

IN DENVER 



By JUDGE, BEN: B.^LINDSEY 

of the Cot»i\ty and Jtxvenile 
Cotirt of Deiwer 



An Address delivered at 
Trinity CHtircH, TKursday 
evening, MarcK 24, 1904 




Meeting' Held under auspices of XKe 
League For Honest Elections, to con- 
sider tHe Question, "'WHat Are You 
Goin^ to Do About It?" 



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Lamks am> Gkmi.e.mkn: I owe this magnificeut aa- 
pemblage an apology. There are hundreds of people being 
turned away from this large hall, yet coming down here 
to-night I said I feared people were so indifferent to their 
rights it would not surprise me to see at this meeting a 
little handful of two or three hundred people. This move- 
ment started with a smaller number, however, and the 
consolation of small numbers is that out of a few earnest 
people meeting together for a just cause have come the 
multitudes who have eventually, in large cities in the past, 
where corruption has become rampant, taken up the 
cudgels for righteousness and decency, and so brought 
real reform out of evil and darkness. And so, my friends, 
I am proud to-night to see this packed house of earnest, 
sincere and honest citizens. It is the lightning that be- 
tokens the storm coming like a deluge to wipe out the 
election thieves that have disgraced this city for the last 
year. For three weeks, in behalf of another good cause, 
I was absent from this city a thousand miles, and nothing 
in all my experience so brought the blush of shame to my 
cheeks as the constant inquiry in every city I visited, 
"What about the terrible election frauds in Denver and 
the debauchery of the ballot box?" And, my friends, 1 
found there it was indeed idle to call those "knockers" 
who dare speak of these things at home. A good lady, who 
sat in a meeting of a thousand of the good women of Cali- 
fornia, showed me clippings— not from any paper in Den- 
ver, but from the papers of Washington City — showing an 
investigation by the National Congress that showed up 
this election blackness in all its horror. And I was often 
asked what were we going to do about it. That is what 

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you are here for to-night. And, my friends, they were 
actually using this thing way out there as an indication 
of the degradation into which the free ballot was bringing 
womankind, and as a reason why women ought to be de- 
nied the right to vote. I can tell you we have a tremen- 
dous burden and responsibility resting upon us here at 
home. I could not explain it away if I would. I will tell 
you this thing has gone abroad, and it remains for us to 
correct it at home, the place where it ought to be corrected. 
Unlike my good friend who has pre- 

ceded me, who says he doubts the ex- 
Responsible? J. i! i- T i 

^ pediency of accusations, I propose to ac- 

cuse before I conclude; I propose to point my finger at 
those who are, at least in my opinion, most responsible for 
these outrages. 

In the court house to-day you will find 

some sixty or seventy clerks busily en- 
Elections. , . .Ll. 1 i- J 

gaged in preparing the election records 
for next Tuesday. The printers are engaged upon the bal- 
lots. Hundreds of men and women are engaged by the 
county in the capacity of judges, clerks, and in the deliv- 
eiy of election material, in order that there may be a fail-, 
lionest election. When all the legitimate expense is calcu- 
lated necessary to bring about an election in this county, 
as provided by law, I believe it would be safe to say it 
costs the taxpayers at least $50,000. We believe in honest 
elections and will tolerate any fair expense, however high 
it may seem, that this result may be accomplished. 

If the last election was fraudulent, then what a farce 
it was to spend this enormous amount of money. Not only 
every year do we spend tens of thousands legitimately and 
fairly to secure honest elections, but, my friends, it is 
also for the protection of the dearest right of citizenship, 
a prerogative that has been won and extended to the people 
generally only within the last fifty years, and that after a 
thousand years of struggle, of wars, the shedding of blood 
and making of widows and orphans. Yet in some of the 

cities in this country this sacred right 

A S3 c rfid 

is being trafficked in and looked upon 

^ ■ with an apparent indifference such as to 

make it well nigh impossible to believe the history of thf' 



struggle for the right of franchise and the millions spent 
every year to preserve it inviolate. 

It is simply useless to try to excuse or cover up the in- 
iquities you are called upon to protest against here to-night. 
It is not honest to try to do it. The frauds are bad enough, 
but to do nothing about it is even worse, because it en- 
courages repetition. 

The action of "Honest John Shafroth," and the recent 
disclosures before Judge Johnson, undenied and unexcused, 
the evidence collected by the League under whose auspices 
we are assembled to-night, as well as the testimony of some 
of the best citizens in Denver, settles beyond question the 
fact that during the last year unblushing election frauds 
hav(> been committed right here in our city. 

This open and unquestioned debauchery 
berious ^^ ^j^^ ballot is a crime so serious that 

Crime. ^^^ ^^^ should be deterred from de 

nouncing it by the ridicule, sneers, taunts, threats or slan- 
ders of others, who, while not daring to deny the fact, are 
ever ready to impart some dishonest or insincere motive to 
those who earnestly seek to correct it. Nor should he be 
frightened by the whispers of. others, however sincere, of 
the hazards to his own political fortune. Reaching or hold 
ing an office is not the greatest success in politics. That 
so-called success which depends upon fraud and the stultifi- 
cation of character is really the basest kind of defeat. 

The fact that the election machinery ha.s 

° ^ been corrupt in the hands of some other 

Good Excuse. ^ . x. j. ■ i, 

party in the past, or in some other 

county by an opposing party, however true, is not an excuse 
for a continuation of this condition. I do not believe that 
the citizens of this city or state who compose the rank and 
file of the Republican or Democratic party favor such meth- 
ods by any set of men who ever controlled the election ma- 
chinery under the cloak of the sacred name of either. Then 
who has been responsible for unquestioned and glaring 
election frauds in the past? Somebody must be responsible, 
and generally it is the leaders or bosses of the machine in 
both parties. They wink at dishonesty in elections simply 
because the game has too often been crooked. The elec- 
tion of 1900 in this county I believe was an honest election. 



There were two pow'erful machines in the county, rep- 
resenting each political party. One of these machines at 
that time controlled the sheriff's office and the other the 
police department. In such an election there are generally 
wholesale arrests on or about election day, because each 
machine controls one of those arms of the government 
which have this power, and each watches the other. Many 
of such arrests and charges of fraud under such circum- 
stances, in the heat and passion of charges and counter- 
charges, no doubt are unjust. But there is no such excuse 
now. There are, unfortunately, some men, many of us 
have good reason to believe, whose only desire to correct 
this evil is not from any sincere purpose to bring about 
reform, but because they did this same thing themselves in 
the past and would like the chance to repeat it, and so they 
hang around like a lot of jackals, in the hope that this 
movement may in some way let one set of rascals out, only 
to let another set in. But, my friends, only the pessimists 
or the criminally indifferent voter, and the fellows who are 
doing or encouraging this kind of deviltry now, or have 
some profit from and want to continue it, can, in my opin- 
ion, use that argument against the upright intentions of the 
officers and the representative body of citizens who com- 
pose this League. 

During the last year we have had a-num- 

yv Coppunt 

^ her of elections in this city controlled ab- 

Machine. ii.ii v.- ,i , • 

solutely by one machine, all working 

harmoniously. 

It has wielded the power of the law at the ballot box. 
The men of both great political parties who are respon- 
sible for this machine are responsible for honesty or dis- 
honesty at the ballot box. If they want honest elections 
they can get together and so decree, and there will be no 
substantial fraud. If they want dishonest elections, they 
have plenty of servile, willing tools ready to do their bid- 
ding. Those who are guilty ought to be punished; the 
men who are responsible for the corrupt election judges 
ought to be punished a great deal more. We ought to 
have some charity for the honest mistakes of men in pub- 
lic office. I believe in the doctrine of President Roose- 



velt, that the man who never made a mistake never did 
anything. But there are mistakes and mistakes, and he 
did not mean to tolerate in public office dishonesty or in- 
difference. We can all subscribe to the moral doctrine of 
Mr. Bryan, who is pi'eaching "t?ic wisdom of doing right," 
and that it is better to go down to defeat in support of 
honesty and decency, or a principle we believe in, than 
to meet with what the world may call "success" by an 
t>pposite course. We must wake up to the fact that this is 
as true in politics as in any other department of life. Try- 
ing to justify a different code of morals in politics, and 
ignoring the principles of honesty and decency by different 
political machines, w-hich have captured and debauched 
the fair name of each politcial party in the past, has been 
the main cause of this condition. It is not, after all, a 
question of politics; it is a question of men. The name 
"Democrat" or "Republican" does not change dishonest 
men into honest men. A rose by any other name would 
smell as sweet, and so an election crook by any other 
name reeks as foul. We know of some of them, as alleged 
Republicans ten years ago, who bob up as alleged Demo- 
crats to-day. He is, under whatever guise he sails, a dan 
gerous thief. The man in public office, charged upon his 
oath with the solemn duty of enforcing the election laws, 
who, by inaction or indifference, or through fear, coward- 
ice or selfishness, pennits such men to ply their nefarious 
trade, is simply a worse criminal, and deserves to be stig- 
matized in the eyes of the community as one who ought to 
be in the penitentiary if he is not there; because, my 
friends, it is not the degradation of the ballot that we have 
to suffer so much as the train of attendant evils and peril- 
ous consequences. 

According to a recent editorial in Mr. Bryan's paper. 
"The Commoner," the head of the Pinkerton Detective 
Agency said in a recent address: 

"As long as the majority of our public 
n ^PSf" s servants are thieves, efforts to suppress 
pinion. crime will prove a dismal failure. One 

thieving aldermen or official can corrupt hundreds. Thr 
downfall and punishment of one man known to thousands 
will have a more salutary effect than the conviction of a 
hundred petty thieves. He who resorts to knavery to 



secure a public office, and uses it for fraud and theft, is 
far more culpable than the unlettered, half-civilized gamin 
who picks a pocket or snatches a loaf of bread to satisfy 
the cravings of hunger. Aldermen of large cities gener- 
ally purchase, at a considerable cost, their political posi- 
tions. They corrupt many of their constituents and start 
thousands upon a course of crime. The transition from 
stuffing a ballot box or falsifying an election return to pick- 
ing a pocket and sandbagging a pedestrian is not difficult. 
Our modern politician employs those already corrupted, 
but many join the criminal classes by way of the political 
route. In large cities, like New York and Chicago (and, I 
may add, Philadelphia, St. Louis, Denver and San Fran- 
cisco), thousands of criminals owe their existence to po- 
litical corruption." 

My friends, this is a terrible indictment. 
/K fVlurdcrsp 

I can not believe the statement that the 

s a u ge. majority of our public officials are baxl. 

Kut Mr. Pinkerton ought to know. Fred Arnold, the elec- 
tion judge and the murderer, a young man eighteen years 
of age, now ready for the gallows, certainly was not helped 
by the vile example set him by men who. if they did not 
have the direct protection of the police department of this 
city at one or two of our recent elections, certainly thought 
they had, when undoubtedly, in my opinion, were com- 
mitted the rankest kinds of frauds at the ballot box. The 
men most directly responsible for these frauds were tbose 
members of the city council, calling themselves Republi- 
cans, in appointing corrupt men as judges, who were ex- 
pected to debauch the ballot box when appointed, and an 
equally venal fire and police board, calling itself Demo- 
cratic, that stood by and deliberately permitted the ravish- 
ment. But there are some good men on that council, who 
have been commended by name here to-night, and whom 
we should all honor and respect, and I do not believe they 
will permit a repetition of this thing, and it is not even 
hopeless to expect a change of front by the fire and police 
board. The still, small voice of the people can sometimes 
be as a roaring lion. And is it not time that the people 
were waking up? Do you know, you people, who think you 
are too good, or for some other false reason fail, to go to 
the ballot box and exercise your right to vote, that you are, 



politically, not only slaves instead of freemen, but you 
thereby encourage this lawlessness, and to that extent 
become particeps crimmis. Public officials like to be en- 
couraged, they like to please honest citizens, they are hu- 
man ; but you sleep on, and sleep on, while crooks break in 
and steal your power, and those whom, I believe, would 
generally serve you faithfully are almost forced to pander 
to the powers of fraud and corruption or seek political 
graves. You ask men in office to be honest and just and 

faithful, and then if, by your criminal 
Support 

1„. indifference, you neglect to come out 

Good Officers. 

and vote, and that intelligently, you 

simply contribute your mite to boost dishonest men into 
office, you help to throttle the will of the people, and you 
help to place the noose about the neck of a faithful pub- 
lic servant, that he may be led to the place of political 
execution. 

I have had some men on the police force tell me that 
they detested the fact that this slimy hand of politics, b.v 
way of the powers that rule them, interfered with the hon 
est enforcement of the law. They are not entirely to 
blame. There are some good men there, we all know, and 
there are some others who have undoubtedly violated the 
very laws they have sworn to uphold. 

A little boy, nine years old, with his little brother of 
twelve, recently said to me: "Judge, if Mr. So-and-So 
(giving his name) sells liquor on Sunday and lets little boys 
come to his saloon, when you tell us it is against the law, 
why can't we swipe things!" This, my friends, is the 
power of example, beginning at a very early age. You 
may have heard the story of the deacon and the boy. The 
deacon became ill, and the people in the village were so 
interested the doctors posted bulletins. At 4 o'clock came 
the announcement that the good man was not expected to 
live. At 5 o'clock the bulletin read: "The good deacon 
has gone to heaven." At 6 o'clock the boy came along 
and posted this notice: "Extra edition! Great excite- 
ment in heaven; the deacon has not arrived!" It is the 
duty of men to set good examples, and I believe that we 
can generally do this, and, at the same time, be fair and 
just and charitable: but there is a limit to that charity 



which we may show for those mistakes which we may 
sometimes countenance. 

I believe in being just to all men, but it must not be for- 
gotten that justice is due to the tens of thousands of men, 
women and children in this community, as well as the few 
hundred political ward heelers, election crooks and thieves, 
and the men in power, infinitely worse than all of them, 
who place the dollar and selfishness and greed and politi- 
cal graft and influence above decency and honesty, and 1 
say this without regard to whatever party they declare 
allegiance. Justice is due to the people of this commu- 
nity; and I want to say here, weighing my words and be- 
ing responsible for what I say, that if these men at the 
city hall, be they Republicans or Democrats; if these men 
at the court house, be they Republicans or Democrats, who 
are the public servants of this people, paid by this people, 
upon the assumption that thej' will be true, faithful, honest, 
just and loyal public servants, vested with the power and 
charged with the duty of enforcing the laws, desired a fair 
election and set their foot down, and said there should be 
a fair election, I want to tell you, my friends, that there is 
no army of election crooks in this world that could de- 
bauch a ballot box. But I want to say to you that some of 
them are a part of a machine that is all-powerful to make 
and unmake men; to lift them up or throw them down, 
just so long as the people are indifferent and refuse to 
vote, and I say to you that the majority of them have not 
wanted a fair election; they have deliberately winked at 
election frauds. The men responsible for these frauds 
have been encouraged, aided and abetted by their conduct. 
They would be just as honest on election day as they are 
dishonest, if they were encouraged that way. It is horrible 
enough for a man to deliberately steal a 
ewaraea precinct, but it is infinitely worse that 

or raud. j^^ should be rewarded instead of pun- 

ished. And if you are going to do anything about it, you 
must go to these men and demand that they do their duty. 
If you can get them to make up their minds to do their 
duty, honestly, fearlessly and unselfishly, we will have fair 
elections. I say this because it is the truth, and every 
politician in this town knows it. They will pretty nearly 

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make up their minds to do this just as soon as they are 
sure you really mean it. You can't give a better sign of 
this than by getting out to register and to vote, as every 
good citizen should. Let the people say now (if it was not 
said a year or more ago, when this agitation began) to 
those who can prevent fraud : "This fraud must be a thing 
of the past; this game must be fair; no cheating and no 
fouling. Not because we want to put back the old elec- 
tion thieves who disgraced the Republican party, or even 
because we want to put out the election thieves, and those 
responsible for them, who are disgracing the Democratic 
party and bringing it into disrepute, but above all this and 
bej-ond all this — because it is right and because we want 
to preserve the fair fame and good name of Denver, and 
punish those who are responsible for our degradation; be- 
cause we want to preserve the morals of our children by 
demanding that a good example shall be set to them in the 
affairs of government and in the enforcement of the law. 
as well as in every other department of life; and if you do 
not heed the voice of the people, if you musi continue to 
sneer at and malign those who would dare to ask for hon- 
esty and decency, you will simply stand the consequences 
that always come from an aroused public conscience, and 
that is annihilation and defeat, as you deserve." 

Let us have confidence in the people, 
ear u some of you say they will not come out 

Responsibility. .^^^^ register. I believe they will. If they 
do not, they are shouldering a fearful responsibility. And 
even if so, I still say to you that because the master sleeps 
is no reason why the servant should violate his trust or 
thrust the knife in his heart. And if the election official 
or public oflicer does this thing, he must be treated as any 
other outlaw or the murderer. 

The press is an important factor for good in this move- 
ment, and it is encouraging that the past few weeks has 
demonstrated that every newspaper in this city, whatever 
may he their unfortunate McJcerings upon other siibjects, 
seem to he together itpcni this one important issue, and the 
determination, with all good citizens who really want hon- 
est elections, to hold up the hands of this League in its 
effort to preserve the political integrity of our beloved 
Denver. 

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